If you look at the globe, could you tell west from east? There is no East or West, these things are made up. It's all imaginary. Each country is free to believe what they believe, no matter if it's in the so called East or West. Don't try to look it from a particular 'side'. Look at it how YOU see it. Make you own judgements.

Would you think Russia and the rest of Europe be a good match? How many values do they share? Not many. Russia's actions have proven not letting them in NATO was an extremely good decision. I would not want to side with a country like that.

I'm gonna point out though, that Ukraine has far more shared values with Russia than the west. Ukraine aspires to be under the sphere of influence of the west than Russia for economic reasons. This conflict is a bit like the Northern Ireland troubles, except the difference was that mainland Europe could do was to watch at the time

> Don't try to look it from a particular 'side'. Look at it how YOU see it. Make you own judgements.

"Make up your own mind!" ( = Use some of the search terms I've fed you to Google for similar shit and hopefully take it for "independent science") is what the anti-vaccine trolls say, too.

I've watched the Pozner video before, but I would be highly skeptical. Vladimir Pozner is a former KGB propagandist according to his own admission. Thus he has quite a good understanding about effective propaganda: "Intelligent propaganda is not a propaganda that tells blatant lies. It's something where you try to show the good side of what your [sic] supporting and you don't tell about the negatives, you only tell about the positive." [1]

For example, while Pozner insists that Russia did nothing wrong during the 90s, he's conveniently forgetting to mention the Chechen Wars. Which wasn't a conflict the west was a party in, but it wouldn't exactly be fair to say Russia was a peace-loving nation during that time.

Also while he says there's plenty of proof of Putin trying to join NATO or the EU, I can only find proof of half-hearted attempts to join NATO, it doesn't seem he was very serious about any of it. Back in 2009 the Russian delegation to NATO, while open to the suggestion of joining NATO, also said "Great powers don't join coalitions, they create coalitions. Russia considers itself a great power." [2] Those aren't the kind of things you say when you're actively trying to join NATO.

In any case, I agree that the west should've done more to ensure democracy in the early Russian Federation was a success. And while the Wolfowitz Doctrine was widely condemned and was heavily changed it definitely cemented belief in Russia that the west was only interested in isolating it.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/prop/deep/interv/p_int_vladimir... [2] https://euobserver.com/news/27890

Russia's attempts to join NATO pre-date 2009 by more than a decade. By 2009 it was clear that it would not be allowed into NATO, no matter what they did.

Here is the first google result from before 2008 [1]. Anyone paying attention in the 90s will recall when Russia was signalling a renewed interest in joining NATO.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/03/06/p...

> Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an unexpected gesture to the West, suggested in a television interview today that Russia would consider joining NATO if the Western alliance agreed to treat Russia as an equal partner.

I'm surprised that some people still haven't learned that his words don't mean anything.

I remember this interview; even at the time it came across as trolling. Key words: "unexpected gesture", "would consider", "treat as equal partner".

For reference, "treat as equal partner" is the putinspeak for "recognize our right to control half of the continent".

No wonder nobody took him seriously.

I've seen that Mearsheimer video linked all over the Net last week... Mostly by raving pro-Putin trolls.

And the very first teaser quote from that Guardian article:

> "George Robertson recalls Russian president did not want to wait in line with ‘countries that don’t matter’"

Yeah, that attitude pretty conclusively shows why Russia doesn't belong in a mutual-defense alliance of countries big and small.

What values would those be? I'm really not following you?